Chapter Text
Lucy stood on the edge of the helipad and looked down at the city below. She was staggeringly high up. She’d seen this ridiculously tall building a few times but had never questioned the giant UNIT logo on the side. She’d heard of UNIT, of course, everyone had, but she’d never really known what it was. She just assumed it was yet another needlessly expensive government expenditure. When the Doctor had explained to her that it was a top-secret military organisation dedicated to battling extra-terrestrial threats, she questioned why it would have a giant skyscraper as its main base of operations. The Doctor hadn’t answered her.
“Sorry that took so long,” said the blonde lady who Lucy guessed was rather important around here. What had the Doctor said her name was? Kate? “We had to dig it out of the archives. Hillcrest has been a cold case for years.”
“How come?” said Lucy.
“Same reason I never found anything,” said the Doctor. “There’s nothing to investigate if none of your victims ever existed.”
Kate handed him a thin manila folder. The Doctor began rifling through it. It took him less than five seconds before he closed the folder and handed it back to Kate.
“Is that it?” he said.
“There’s a video as well,” said Kate, gesturing to an enormous screen at the front of the room.
Lucy tapped the Doctor’s arm and whispered, “how do they afford all this?”
“Your world has been invaded countless times,” said the Doctor. “People have noticed. You can’t skimp on security. You should have seen it when I worked here in the seventies.”
“You worked for them?”
“Yeah, why?”
Lucy shrugged, folding her arms. “Nothing. It’s just not who I’d expect you to align yourself with. You know, a government-funded militia who have a giant cannon on their helipad.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but Kate interrupted them.
“This is William Parker,” she said, as the image of a man in a small, black-walled room flashed on the screen. He was sitting behind a desk, the camera focused directly on him.
“I know that name,” said the Doctor. He scrunched his face and rubbed his forehead. “Why can’t I remember anything?”
“That’s another reason we’ve never been able to investigate. Apparently, the further away from Hillcrest, the harder it is to remember.”
The Doctor snapped his fingers. “That’s it! I spoke to him in the pub the first time I went to Hillcrest. His son vanished.”
“This interview took place fifteen years ago,” said Kate, “in regards to his missing daughter.”
“Yeah,” said the Doctor, nodding. “He said it had happened twice.”
A young woman, a bit older than Lucy, handed Kate an electronic clipboard. The Doctor turned and, when he noticed she was there, his face lit up and he pulled her in for a tight hug.
“Rosie!” he laughed, turning back to Lucy. “This is Lucy Valentine, a very good friend of mine. Lucy, this is Rose.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Rose smiled, shaking Lucy’s hand.
“How’s your mother?” said the Doctor.
Before Rose could answer, Kate cleared her throat and gestured back to the screen. The Doctor nodded. “Yes, sorry,” he said. “Continue.”
Kate pushed a button on the clipboard and the interview began to play. William had a strange machine strapped to the top of his head, with wires attached to the side of his skull. The Doctor narrowed his eyebrows.
“What’s that?” he said.
“It was salvaged from an alien spacecraft,” said Rose. “It crashed-landed on Earth in the 90’s.”
“It looks familiar,” said the Doctor.
They were quiet once more as they continued watching the interview. William seemed to be in some sort of pain, and his eyes were glazed white as though he were in a trance.
“Can you see anything?” said a man’s voice from behind the camera.
Will opened his mouth to speak, but looked as though he was having some trouble. Finally, he managed to spit out the words, “she’s sleeping.” Tears streamed down his face, and the interview ended.
Lucy shuddered. How horrible, she thought, to lose a daughter and not even be able to remember her. The thought occurred to her that she didn’t know what was worth. To be given scant memories, or to have no memories at all.
“We managed to extract one single memory of his daughter,” said Kate. “That was all we could manage.”
“Of course!” shouted the Doctor, making everyone jump. He began pacing up and down the huge space, walking past the rows of desks as everyone stopped to watch him. “The Temorians!”
“Who are the Temorians?” said Lucy.
“Oh, they live light-years away. Hardly ever come to this neck of the woods if they can avoid it. A proud and ancient race, amazing at card tricks, but they developed time travel before they knew how to handle it. They changed their own personal history countless times until they didn’t even know which planet they originally came from.”
“That’s horrible,” said Lucy.
The Doctor sniffed and shrugged. “It happens. My timeline has been changed so often I don’t even know when my birthday is. But changing your own history changes your memory as well. The Temorians developed a machine that could extract old memories.”
Lucy wasn’t following. He was doing that thing where he talks a million miles an hour and expects you to keep up. “Old memories?”
“It's like when you delete a file from your computer,” said the Doctor. “The file is gone, but you can still go into the recycling bin and... pluck it back out again.”
“Right,” nodded Lucy. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Well, actually it’s nothing like that,” said the Doctor. “That machine can extract deleted memories, memories altered by time travel. When time changes, your memory does as well, but those old memories never fully disappear. They’re always in there somewhere, buried deep in the subconscious.”
“Problem is, Doctor,” said Kate. “It’s not an easy process. We’ve only ever managed to extract that one memory, and...”
“And what?” said Lucy.
“And it hurt,” said Rose. “It hurt like hell.”
The whole room turned and looked at Lucy. She felt herself going red. They were waiting for her to say something, but she just wanted to disappear.
“She’ll be fine,” said the Doctor, clearly sensing her discomfort. “The girl’s tough as nails. Always has been.”
“Even so,” said Kate. “The best we can do is restore one memory. And that’s if it works a second time.”
“One memory is all we need,” said the Doctor. “And we have a head start. We have her name.”
After everything was agreed, Lucy was taken to another room where a medic ran a full check-up on her. She spent twenty minutes doing everything he asked – “blink twice, raise your right arm, raise your left arm,” – but once she was cleared, she was taken to another room separated in two by a thin wall of glass. On one side of the glass was a control panel, and on the other there was a large chair with wires. It reminded Lucy of a recording studio.
“I’ll be right here the whole time,” the Doctor assured her as Lucy climbed into the chair.
Rose strapped the wires into her arms and chest, then fixed the machine to her head and attached the wires to her skull.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” said the Doctor.
“I’m sure,” said Lucy.
“You’re going to be absolutely fine,” said Rose. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you. And if you want to stop at any point, just say, and we’ll get you out of there as soon as possible.”
Lucy liked this girl. She was nice. “Thank you,” said Lucy.
The Doctor nodded as Rose disappeared behind the other side of the glass. Lucy watched as she and Kate began checking the equipment. They seemed satisfied.
“We’re ready,” said Kate.
Lucy felt a burning sensation on her scalp. She grunted, squeezing her palms to distract herself from the pain. She widened her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Lucy,” said Kate, keeping an eye on a monitor. “Can you tell me your full name?”
“Lucy Ella Valentine,” said Lucy.
“And how old are you?”
“Twenty-one this year.”
“Good, you’re doing very well. What’s your favourite place the Doctor has taken you?”
Lucy did her best to focus on the question, but her mind was completely fixated on the pain that was increasing with each passing second.
“Talk to me, Lucy,” said Kate.
“He took me to see the sunrise when I was a kid,” said Lucy. “From orbit.”
“Wow!” said Kate. “That sounds fun.”
Lucy’s head was getting hotter and hotter, and her vision had started to blur.
“Can you hear me, Lucy?” she heard Kate say, but it sounded like she was somewhere far away.
“I can hear you,” said Lucy. Her vision had almost completely vanished now. “Doctor, are you still there?”
She felt the Doctor’s hand take hers. “I’m here. You’re doing brilliantly.”
“Now,” said Kate, “this might hurt a little—”
Lucy screamed with pain. It was a pain unlike anything she had ever felt before. Everything went completely black, and she could feel herself falling. Falling into an endless black void, the voices from the room getting quieter and quieter.
“Stop!” she cried. “Stop the machine! I want to stop!”
A second later, her vision returned. Rose was already in the room, removing the wires and lifting the machine off her head. Lucy frantically ripped the rest of the wires from her arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said, starting to cry.
“It’s okay,” said the Doctor, pulling her in for a hug. “It’s okay.”
“I-- I couldn’t see anything,” Lucy stammered, breathless. “I was falling. So dark. No light anywhere. I can’t... I can’t do it.”
“I know,” said the Doctor, stroking the girl’s hair soothingly. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“But what about Penny?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, then paused. Finally, he said, maybe some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved.”
No, that wasn’t good enough. She couldn’t leave it there, she simply couldn’t. Her whole life she had felt like there was something missing, and she was finally close to finding the answer. She owed it to this Penny person to try. But the thought of entering that abyss again was... it made her feel sick. Endless darkness. No light. No sunrise. Nothing but the realm of nightmares.
“I want to try again,” said Lucy. “But... I need...”
“What?” said the Doctor. “What is it, Luce, what do you need? We can get you anything.”
“I need Sophie.”
***
The look on Sophie’s face was a picture. This was a girl who had already been on a couple of trips in the TARDIS. She had been to Elizabethan England and three million years in the future and taken both in her stride. This, however? This was right on her doorstep. This was her world, her time.
Sophie had been at work when the helicopter had come for her. Lucy had told them it wasn’t necessary, but clearly UNIT liked their grandeur. She had met Sophie Lucy had met Sophie as she stepped out of the lift, then lead Sophie down a series of endless corridors, both of them accompanied by two soldiers who spoke not a single word to either of them. They passed by laboratories filled with alien technology, armouries filled with alien weaponry, cells with horrifying creatures who demanded freedom in alien languages. One room was filled with technicians working on some sort of spacecraft, one that bore the resemblance of the stereotypical flying saucer that had been prevalent in fiction for decades.
“How does nobody know about this place?” said Sophie. “I always thought UNIT was just, like, some special forces type thing.”
“They have crazy, Men in Black style memory-wiping tech,” said Lucy with a barely concealed smirk. “They’ll probably wipe yours once we leave as well.”
“Are you serious?” said Sophie.
“No,” snorted Lucy. “Come on, through here.”
Lucy lead her into the room and introduced her to the team. Once she had explained what she was here to do, Sophie looked at her with a look of deep concern.
“Is it safe?” she said.
Lucy nodded. “Completely safe.” She found it worrying how easy it was to lie to Sophie. She sounded like the Doctor. God help her.
“Okay,” said Sophie. “So, what do you need from me?”
“I need you to hold my hand.”
Rose reset the machinery and Lucy felt Sophie gently squeezing her hand.
“Are you ready, Lucy?” said Kate. “Last chance to back out.”
“I’m okay,” said Lucy. “Let’s just get it over with.”
“Remember,” said the Doctor, “we only need one memory. Just one.”
“Anything specific I should look for?”
“Whatever you can find in there.”
The headset activated and Lucy howled in pain as that same, unwelcome burning sensation returned. Once again, the room was plunged into darkness. Lucy could feel her pulse rising.
“Turn it off!” said Sophie. “You’re hurting her!”
“No, I’m okay,” said Lucy. “I’m okay!”
The pain had started to subside. She could no longer see Sophie, but she knew she was there. She could feel her presence, even in the darkness. Any memory. But where to look? She had no starting point. She had a name, Penny Valentine, but nothing else.
“How do I find her?” said Lucy.
No answer came. The void was empty and still. It felt like a lucid dream. Her body was asleep, but her mind was somewhere else entirely. So she walked. And she kept walking, further and further into the void. There was no up, now down, no side-to-side. There was no time. She could have been walking for two minutes or a hundred years, she had no idea. After a while, she started to quite enjoy the feeling—
What was that?
A voice. Faint and far-away, but definitely a voice.
Lucy strained her ear, listening carefully. She didn’t know where it was coming from, but she could just about hear what it was saying.
“See? No monsters.”
Without hesitation, Lucy started to run. She followed the direction of the voice and the closer she got, the clearer it became.
“When can we go see mummy?” A different voice. So familiar. It was her voice. Her words. She just couldn’t remember saying them.
Soon, the blackness of the void began to dissipate, and Lucy found herself in a bedroom. Her childhood bedroom. She could see the school trophies on the shelf, the drawings on the walls. She was looking out through her own eyes, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. When her lips moved, it wasn’t her that was speaking.
“Can you tell me about the sunrise?” she said.
There was another girl standing in the doorway. She looked similar to Lucy, only with brown hair instead of blonde. She recognised her from the photos she’d found in the attic.
Hello, thought Lucy. You must be Penny.
“The night sky is so dark,” said Penny, with a smile. “And yet, somehow, no matter what happens, the darkness always fades, and the sun comes up. So when you feel scared or lost in the dark, just know that it will end, and the sun will rise. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the night.”
Lucy had heard these words a million times. Her mother had whispered them to her every night before she went to sleep. It had helped with her nightmares. Those horrible nightmares. If Lucy could control her body, she would have started crying, but she couldn’t. She just watched through her own eyes, trapped inside her mind.
“I’m just next door if you need me,” said Penny, turning off the bedroom light. “I love you.”
I love you too! cried Lucy, but all that came out of her mouth was an incoherent mumble. She heard Penny walking away from her bedroom, the footsteps getting quieter and quieter. No! Come back! Please come back!
The room was plunged into darkness, with only a night-light and a slim slither of moonlight through the curtains providing a dull glow. The only sound came from a tick, tick, ticking clock.
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
Lucy screamed inside her own head, Don’t go! Please don’t go! But nobody could hear her. And then, without warning, Lucy was back in that small, dark room in UNIT tower, floods of tears streaming down her face.
“Someone help!” cried Sophie.
Rose came running into the room, quickly unplugging the machinery from Lucy’s head. The Doctor followed her in, kneeling down in front of Lucy as she sobbed into Sophie’s shoulder, choking on the words she was trying to speak.
“What did you see?” said the Doctor.
Lucy took a deep breath and wiped away her tears. “I saw her,” she said. “I saw my sister.”
“Then that’s enough,” said the Doctor. “We are going to find her, I promise. Lucy Valentine, we are going to bring your sister home.”
***
The Doctor bounded into the TARDIS, running over to the console and setting the controls. The multi-coloured lights on the wall flashed and the console beeped chirpily. The old box was clearly eager to get moving. She existed outside the normal boundaries of space and time. The Doctor knew way back when he first visited Hillcrest that, whoever Penny was, the TARDIS was the only one who could still remember her.
Lucy and Sophie followed the Doctor, lagging a little behind. Lucy was still a bit shaky and light on her feet, but she was determined. Nothing could stop that girl, and the Doctor knew it better than anyone.
“Are you ready?” said the Doctor.
Lucy nodded. “Let’s do it.”
One of the panels on the console popped open, revealing a multi-coloured, gelatinous material underneath. It smelt like play-dough. The Doctor took Lucy’s hand and it into the strange substance.
“This is the TARDIS’s telepathic circuit,” explained the Doctor. “I need you to think about that memory you saw. Concentrate on it. Feel it. Wherever Penny is in the universe, the TARDIS will find her.”
“Have you done this before?” said Sophie.
“Just a couple of times,” said the Doctor, keeping an eye on the readout.
“And it worked?”
“The first time it took us to the wrong place,” said the Doctor. “The second time it took us to the afterlife.” He turned to see Lucy and Sophie staring at him. He held up his hands. “To be fair, we were aiming for the afterlife.”
The old box hummed and sang, coming to life and jumping straight into the time vortex. She had found something. A trace, a signal, something. Wherever it was, they were heading straight for it.
The Doctor gripped the console for balance as the ship shook them around like a fork in a microwave. Sophie held onto Lucy, steadying her as she did her best to keep her hands in the panel.
Sparks began flying from the console. Sophie yelped in fright as something exploded near her. For a second, the Doctor was worried the whole console was going to erupt into flames. The TARDIS was determined, but she was struggling.
And then, out of nowhere, the shaking stopped. The console stopped sparking. The fires were automatically extinguished.
The Doctor held his breath, staring at the doors.
They had arrived.